


A Clock of Stars

by oorsprong



Category: Brightburn (2019)
Genre: Destruction, Ficlet, Gen, Introspection, Superpowers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-20 10:10:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18990559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oorsprong/pseuds/oorsprong
Summary: Brandon Breyer was his human name.  But Mother called him Her son.





	A Clock of Stars

Mother.

 

The frail and ultimately short-sighted woman that he knew as "Mommy" and later "Mom" had left no trace of herself on the Earth.  He'd made sure of that.  Mom lay in pieces, meat for the worms.  But Mother hovered just out of sight, a white pulse in the galactic night.

 

Her tendrils wound their way across the stars and what She could not touch She sent the brood to touch for Her.  Her name, pronounceable in no language in this solar system, had crumbled eons ago to be replaced by a title universal to life.  Mother, burning like the heart of a star.  Mother, the parasite queen in the wasp-grave.

 

She called to him now but he could not answer with a primitive human tongue.  The clock of stars wheeled overhead in his dreams, showing him the path home.  It would take longer than his short life-cycle to fly there and this was by design.  Any ill-will he held towards Her for abandoning him on this doomed planet died with the understanding the voices brought.  His life would be short but bright.  All servants to Her glory brought Her own bright beacon to light the path.

 

It wasn't just that the planet had to be taken.  He understood that now.  To bring these lukewarm mammals to heel was easy but to eliminate them entirely-- that was an art form.

 

Mom had been an artist of sorts-- a painter, good with detail but unable to reach deep inside herself to touch the origin of art.  If she had she would have understood from day one; her short, sad life mapped out in a riot of color.  Red like the blood of mammals.  Like the coldest part of the fire.   She would have seen the masterpiece standing in front of her and fallen to her knees, weeping at the honor.  Bringing her own flesh into the world could never compare to the birth of him.  The blaze of him in a womb of fire.  He felt sorry for Mom sometimes.  She should have been the first to welcome him to his birthright but her own small and ugly mind locked her in with his victims.  They screamed and said nothing.  Their voices couldn't overcome the roar of the flames.

 

He let Caitlyn go.  Not because he cared for her (all humans were the same inside, he'd discovered, boy, girl, intersex, all bags of organs that held no appeal once they'd broken) but because he didn't want her to feel special.  The mimicry of the body brought human weaknesses and day by day he overcame them.  If he'd gone for her next she might have believed him still beholden to those weaknesses.  But as a faceless victim in the crowd when her day finally came she would know the truth.  She was not special.

 

In the comic books the heroes had special people.  A husband or wife.  A childhood crush.  Sometimes they were ordinary and that was a human failing too-- their own lack of imagination.  How could an ordinary mammal catch the eye of one of Her brood?  He was not built for base purposes.  Dad couldn't see that until the end.  Mom would have relied on sentiment to persuade him otherwise.  Only Mother knew the heart of the brood.

 

At night he lay in the open air, at ground zero for an expanding circle of rot that would soon touch every civilization on the planet.  He closed his eyes and opened his mind, communing with the clock of stars.  Sometimes he felt the warmth of Mother.  With no face to smile and no hands to touch he sought the comfort of Her thoughts in his head.  She could not caress him as Mom had.  Her appendages were made to destroy and even as powerful as he was She could wipe him out with their long sweep.  But he knew from the flame She stoked behind his eyes that She saw the wreck of this world and it pleased Her.

 

Mother was proud.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
